Firefighters or other first responders are often confronted with the urgent need to gain access through locked doors or windows for several reasons, i.e. to effectively fight a fire, to get help to the elderly, to help stricken individuals get necessary medical care, etc. Gaining quick access through locked doors can be paramount to successfully fighting a fire for many reasons, including: accessing the fire itself; opening an emergency escape route; searching for trapped persons; providing ventilation; obtaining a strategic location from which to combat the fire; etc.
Firefighters carry tools with them for fighting fires. Two tools that firefighters carry and which are used in breaching locked doors include a Halligan bar and fire axe. Halligan bars were first made in the 1940s and comprise a fork at one end and an adz blade and pike at the other end. In use, the Halligan bar's adz end is placed between the door and the doorjamb to pry the two apart. The adz can be hammered further between the door and doorjamb by using a flat side of the fire axe as a sledge hammer. In this way, the tools are used to crush the door or doorjamb and pry the door away from the doorjamb thereby opening the doorway.
An expert, well trained firefighter wielding a Halligan bar and fire axe can breach virtually any locked door in a matter of seconds no matter whether the door and doorjamb are constructed of wood, metal, or other materials. However, to become an expert in using Halligan bars and fire axes requires hours of dedicated training in their use.
Conventional systems have been developed to provide training to firefighters and others in the use of Halligan bars and fire axes for breaching locked doors, but these systems contain one or more disadvantages that provide a less than stellar training experience. For example, such systems may be bulky and very heavy which makes them difficult to move to new locations. Movement to new locations, i.e. different firehouses, for these systems requires that they first be completely disassembled, the parts moved to the new location, and then the parts reassembled at the new location with these steps being repeated for each move.
The conventional systems also have the drawback of using movable springs or hydraulic systems that attempt to simulate the effect of crushing the door or doorjamb by providing tension or resistance to the training firefighter. However, the crushability of a door or doorjamb depends upon the material that is being crushed be it wood, metal, or other materials. Yet the movable springs or hydraulic systems even when set to a particular setting associated with the simulation of crushing a particular material do not accurately reproduce the feeling of actually crushing that particular material.
Other conventional training systems do not allow for repeated uses before key portions of the system need to be replaced or new undamaged doors need to be utilized for additional training sessions.